


Roses

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Series: House of M AU [2]
Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: People want Billy dead but he's busy being preoccupied with Teddy, a palace gardener who ended up saving his life. Meanwhile Teddy isn't quite done saving lives (particularly Billy's), when he realises all is not quite right within the palace.





	1. Part One

When Billy was five he’d tried to climb the yew tree out at the edges of the palace gardens. He’d fallen badly and landed awkwardly. Tommy, who had misbehaved and been kept inside following, had alerted the castle by screaming in tandem with Billy as Billy contended with his first experience of real pain. Billy had been put back together again by Doctor Weathersby. Doctor Weathersby was a kindly man with glasses and an endless supply of boiled sweets to comfort a young prince and a twin who was initially distressed by his brother’s distress, but then decidedly milking it for more food.

Billy had avoided the yew tree for a long time after falling, but at twelve years old Tommy had eventually worked out that it was the only point in the grounds that offered a ladder up and over the high palace walls. The yew became the ladder to freedom.

Almost four years later, Billy sat in the yew tree among the twisting branches that were interlocked and woven tightly, hiding him from the ground. He didn't like being in the palace. He was watched, by the doctor, by the guards. By his mom which was, in some ways, just as bad and maybe even worse.

He touched a hand to his forehead, reflexively. The wound had healed now, mostly, but it didn’t stop him reaching up to double check, remembering.

They’d wanted him dead. He was supposed to be dead.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Did they know he wasn’t?

The blonde who had found him – Teddy –  had seemed familiar. The previous afternoon in general was fairly hazy, hidden behind a wash of panic and pain, from the moment he saw the guards, their swords flashing in the sun, to the moment he realised he was back in his own bed and it was the next morning. Some details were vivid: the slightly rough scratchy feel of the blanket at the faintly familiar stranger’s house, the dust in the late sunlight that had swum before his eyes as he tried to bring himself back to consciousness, Teddy’s low voice as he encouraged Billy to keep trying to heal the cut to his forehead. The blue glow of magic.

He opened his palms and willed the magic back. It didn’t come.

Through a gap in the branches Billy could see the rose gardens. They had a melancholy air about them. No one went there anymore, especially not his grandfather. They were maintained anyway, meticulously. Futilely. Tommy accused Billy of thinking too much, Billy said Tommy didn’t think at all. Either way the rose gardens were an oasis of dismal, forgotten peace he went to sometimes because someone had to, and he felt sorry for the flowers.  Besides, it annoyed Tommy.

The gardeners were packing up.

The old shirt that had been pressed against his forehead, staunching the blood, had smelled of soap, but also, more faintly, cut grass.

Teddy was one of the gardeners. Billy remembered now, seeing him once when he and Tommy had taken their geometry lesson outside. Tommy had spilt ink everywhere when he’d nudged Billy a little too hard for staring.

A flush crept into Billy’s cheeks at the memory, darkening at the recollection of being carried like a child, at being completely helpless and probably utterly idiotic on the gardener’s couch.  

Had he thanked Teddy for saving his life? It was all a bit blurry.

The sun went in, throwing shade across the extensive lawns. Billy shivered.

He turned up at dinner only because he had to. He ate quickly, finishing even before Tommy who was being forced to conduct meals at less than lightning speed for the sake of family conversation. The ringing of cutlery was loud in his ears. One of the guards at the doors kept staring at him. Billy stared back, once, and saw the black hollows inside.

No one else saw.

He went to his room as soon as he reasonably could. Tommy followed, but Tommy’s version of following was racing ahead so he was sitting on the end of Billy’s bed when Billy finally made it into the room.  

"Where were you yesterday?" Tommy demanded. "You're bleeding," he added with an accusatory note in his voice, like he was personally insulted by his twin's injuries. 

Billy reached up to his hairline. Tommy was right.

"It's better than it was," Billy said vaguely. The world was starting to go fuzzy at the edges. 

"Whatdoyoumeanbetterthanitwas?" Tommy asked. The words were blurred together in Tommy's concern which, as usual, masqueraded convincingly as irritation. Billy was too tired to try and decipher the tangled words.

"Billy, what _happened_?"

Tommy's voice was low and urgent, and Billy vaguely knew that what had happened had been important but now there was just static. There was a pressing sense of déjà vu. His vision was faintly blue. Was that normal?

"Billy!"

Billy dreamt of very little other than a confusion of waking moments: comfortable and heavy on an uncomfortable sofa, in his own bed, for some reason outside under the yew tree. He dreamt of a faintly familiar stranger insisting he get a doctor.

 A doctor.

His eyes snapped open. His room was dim. Someone had closed the curtains. Standing next to him was -

He recoiled.  

"Billy?" that was his mom. His mom was in the room. That was okay. Doctor Weathersby wouldn't be able to hurt him if his mom was there.

"Billy love? What happened? Because if I find out this is all because you've been galivanting outside the palace walls again so help me I will lock you in this room until you turn eighteen."

The mix of concern and threats was very much his mom and he felt his heart rate slow down minutely. The holographic display he was hooked to showed the change. Great.

A blur and Tommy was in his vision. He was glaring. He hit Billy's arm again because Tommy believed in consistency where it came to sibling affection.

"You passed out," Tommy said.

"And so you got mom?" Billy hissed.

"Hit you a couple of times first," Tommy answered. "You were right out of it."

"Mom did you hear that?"

Wanda Maximoff had had to deal with the two of them for the almost sixteen likely long-feeling years. She barely registered the exchange.

"Hitting someone is a valid first aid technique," Tommy was continuing. "It's to check whether they respond to pain."

"He seems lively enough now," their mom was saying to the doctor, valiantly ignoring Tommy’s sketchy medical procedures and Billy’s glares.

Doctor Weathersby was looking at Billy with an expression that suggested he was sorely disappointed about this and was thinking of ways in which he could ensure Billy quietened down again, possibly permanently. 

_He's not the doctor_ , Billy wanted to scream but he couldn't. If Mom didn't notice this close up, she wasn't going to notice. And if the Scarlet Witch didn't notice, there wasn't much chance anyone else would.

Maybe it was just him. Maybe he was losing his mind.

But the cut on his head was real. He'd been ambushed leaving the palace. The men had dressed like palace guards, but they hadn't been, just as the doctor wasn't the palace doctor who had given Billy his injections, lollies after eye tests and bandaged and set his arm after Billy had fallen out of the same yew tree he now used to escape the palace.

The doctor reached forward to take Billy's temperature. The doctor was a shell, inside he was all black. Billy tried not to react, but he shivered as the thing’s cold hand pressed against his forehead.

"Seems well enough," the doctor said as he drew back. To Billy it sounded like a threat. _Seems well enough. We'll have to try again._ "Probably just a fluke. Make sure you keep drinking. It's a hot day out there."

Billy murmured his assent. He would have agreed to anything if it got the pretend man out of his room. When they finally left, his mom shooting him a deadly we'll-talk-about-this-later stare as she closed the door behind her, Billy could finally breath.

"I didn't know mom would get the doctor," Tommy said hastily, before Billy could berate him. "You know I didn't quite believe you before. But then you went missing and you’ve been weird all day. Who jumped you? Was it him?"

Billy shook his head.

"It was one of the guards," he said softly.

"What do we do?" Tommy asked. He was vibrating with impatience. Tommy didn't like problems that didn't go away when you hit them. He was impulsive and things like this upset his philosophy of going with the flow and worrying about what kind of monster it was you just outran later.

"I don't know."

Billy sat in the yew tree. This time Tommy was with him, but Tommy had grown bored of just sitting about twenty minutes ago and was taking his frustration out on Billy.

“You can’t hide up here forever,” Tommy eventually snapped.

“I know.”

“We should tell mom about the doctor. Doctor goes, you’re safe, problem solved.”

Billy shrugged. He wasn’t quite so certain.

“It was some of the guards too,” he said.

Tommy scoffed as though he didn’t really see that as a problem.

“What if she doesn’t believe me?” Billy added. “You barely believed me.”

Tommy shrugged now.

“She knows you were hurt.”

It wasn’t that simple. Billy couldn’t explain why, but it wasn’t that simple.

He stared out across the grounds. The sky was heavy with the threat of rain. In the rose gardens, Teddy was pruning again. Roses apparently needed a lot of pruning.

“You’re not listening,” Tommy complained.

Tommy was right. He was also about ten seconds away from spontaneously combusting.

“Alright,” Billy said. “We’ll tell Mom.”

Their mom was talking with some of the guards. One of them turned to Billy with eyes like the abyss. Neither Tommy nor their mom noticed. A shiver crawled down his spine. It wasn’t that simple. Why had he let Tommy con him into believing it would be that simple?

Their mom had listened patiently to their story. Then she’d sighed and told them that she admired their creativity but Billy wasn’t being let off the hook for getting himself hurt out of the palace by making up stories. Tommy had been surprised, had argued at first, then given up. There was a glaze over their mom’s expression and she didn’t seem to see them properly.

Billy didn’t know what was powerful enough to do that to their mom, but apparently whatever it was knew Billy could see them. And they wanted Billy dead.

Tommy stormed off, frustrated.

Billy went out into the rose gardens. It had started to rain and the gardeners had moved into the greenhouses to tend the plants there. He briefly saw Teddy’s silhouette beyond the glass. Had he thanked Teddy?

He should thank Teddy.

At some point Tommy brought him a cup of coffee. It must have been Tommy, because no one else appeared, deposited mugs, and then left again so quickly the human eye didn’t register them. The coffee was hot and bitter and there wasn’t any sugar. He only managed one or two sips.

The next morning the sun was shining again, streaming in through the long windows. He didn’t really remember going to bed. He felt a little dizzy. Perhaps he was coming down with something.

The breakfast room looked out over the rose gardens. Tommy rolled his eyes as Billy stared out at the flowers. Three men and a blonde teenage boy were tending the roses. The teenager looked faintly familiar, but when Billy looked again more closely he couldn’t place him. He’d probably just seen him around the palace.

Billy sipped his coffee.

 


	2. Part Two

Teddy had been put on the rose gardens. It wasn't because he was good with the roses: he wasn't especially. In fact he didn't have a green thumb at all (metaphorically anyway), but a job had been going in the palace gardens and it was that or he and his mom would lose the house. So Teddy bluffed his way through a vague interview and ended up under the gruff but patient tutelage of the head gardener who saw right through Teddy in half a second.

He was getting better. He even had a plant or two at home now, and he hadn't killed them yet.

Teddy suspected the main reason he'd been moved to the rose garden was to keep him firmly out of the way. Ever since he'd had an unconscious Prince on his couch, he'd been distracted, sneaking glances up at the castle, lopping bits of plant off that definitely weren't supposed to be off because his head was someplace else. The rose gardens were out of the way and while they were kept meticulously tended, they seldom had visitors.

Except Prince W- except Billy.

Teddy had caught sight of him in the rose gardens plenty of times while he had been working elsewhere. He'd sit on a bench right in the middle, staring at the fountain. He'd always looked so far away, both figuratively and metaphorically. Previously Teddy had done nothing more than wonder what was on the Prince's mind. (Okay and maybe also acknowledge that the Prince was kind of beautiful, because the Prince _was_ kind of beautiful, but that was a harmless enough acknowledgement - it wasn't like he was ever going to meet him, get anywhere near him.)

Billy hadn't been back to the rose garden while Teddy had been working. He didn't want to admit he was waiting for a glimpse of the prince. He wasn't. (Except there was only so much lying to himself he could do and really he was just checking that Billy was safe. It was only natural to be worried. Right?)

He ran it past Kate, who had a rich father and got invitations to all the society balls but hung out in tiny coffee shops filled with broke teenagers anyway. She'd just burst out laughing.

"He _is_ cute," she said.

She saw the expression on his face, and her laughter died away.

"Half the people in here probably have a crush on him," she said. "It's not really a big deal."

"Does that include you?" Teddy asked, deflecting.

"I prefer blondes," Kate said with a shrug and a mischievous smile. "Seriously though, stare dreamily at Prince Charming all you want but do it from a distance. If there is something going on in the castle it's not something you want to be involved in."

It was good advice. Teddy tried to follow it, but he couldn't stop wondering, especially when a week passed and Billy still hadn't visited the rose gardens. And maybe Billy was just busy. Maybe he had things to do. Maybe he was avoiding Teddy ( _stop being so high school Altman_ ). The point was there was a thousand reasons why he might be absent from the rose garden and they didn't have to all involve Billy getting hurt by the doctor or whatever conspiracy he'd become entangled in.

On a particularly hot summers day, Teddy was moved from the rose gardens and put onto the formal gardens, since there was some fancy party coming up and the landscaping had to be perfect down to the tiniest twig. Kate was going and had teasingly informed him she would assessing the state of the gardens. Teddy had laughed perfunctorily and repressed an urge to ask her to keep an eye on Billy.

Working the formal gardens was exhausting: his mistakes were more obvious and his inexperience was more hampering, but it did take him closer the castle. He stole as many glances up at the imposing structure as he dared but though he saw Princess Lorna, a blur that might have been Thomas or Pietro, and the infamous Scarlet Witch, he didn't see Billy. The back of his neck burnt, his fingers were so stiff he could barely move them, he was probably severely dehydrated, and he was only half done. He turned to see if the others had stopped for lunch and saw the one person he'd been trying to catch all week.

Billy was walking down the steps, one side of a man Teddy didn't recognise. His twin walked the other side, kicking out irritably as they descended and clearly only half listening to the man's lecture. Billy wasn't listening either, but his posture was more demure, his expression was neutral, unchanging. Teddy's heart skipped a beat. If his fingers weren't wrought into shape, he might have dropped his trowel.

Billy passed right by him. He glanced down but he didn't make any sign he recognised Teddy. Teddy's initial disappointment turned into something sharper when Billy walked on, so blank and so distant. Was Billy just pretending not to know him, either to protect Teddy or because Teddy was no longer any use to him? Or was there something more sinister going on? Did Billy truly not know who he was?

The man settled his two pupils under a tree on a nearby patio. Thomas was complaining it was hot. Billy didn't say a word, just sat when he was asked. Teddy tried to focus solely on the flowers in front of him, but it was hard not to look up, harder not to listen. The man was quizzing the twins on various aspects of court manners all of which were lost on Teddy. Thomas answered sporadically and with little interest. Billy didn't speak at all unless directly prompted and his voice was so low Teddy couldn't make out the exact words.

A shiver ran down Teddy's spine, and he suddenly felt cold, like the sun had gone in though it still blazed above. He turned and saw a guard at the top of the steps, glaring down at him. The guard's gaze felt chilly and heavy and Teddy guiltily turned his attention firmly back to the flowers. The guard stayed at his post at the door, and Teddy could feel his eyes on him, the whole time he worked. His heart beat was loud in his ears as he stood to leave he half expected the guard to follow him, to escort him away to the palace dungeons or maybe just to a dark alley where he'd disappear never to be heard from again. 

He made his escape however, and was allowed to hurry back to the sheds where the garden staff kept their tools. He persuaded someone to swap patches with him, but it hardly mattered: by the time he finished his lunch and returned the Princes, their tutor and the guard were all gone.

The next day Teddy was back to the rose gardens.

He had stopped pruning about five minutes before, sheers hanging loosely, but when someone came up behind him and tapped him on a shoulder he jumped and nearly took off his hand.

"Sorry," a familiar but unfamiliar voice said, the word spat out quick as a bullet. Teddy turned to find Prince Thomas staring at him. Teddy couldn't quite work out if the Prince's expression was accusatory or interested but he hedged his bets and pulled off the best bow he could while already kneeling and holding a pair or garden sheers.

"You kept staring at my brother," Thomas commented, flinging himself back on a bench and throwing his legs out in front of him. He had his arms tightly folded, and Teddy felt his heart in his throat. It made it hard to speak, and words failed him anyway.

"Are you one of them?" Thomas demanded.

"One of who?" Teddy asked, a little bemused. "Uh your highness," he added belatedly but Thomas just waved the address away.

 Thomas glanced around the rose garden faintly dismissively and then flicked his eyes back to Teddy again, looking him up and down.

"I can see why Billy likes the roses so much," Thomas commented with a sly smirk that flicked out and then was gone again as quickly as a snake's tongue. Teddy wasn't sure what Thomas was implying. He was hot and dirty, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead, a complete contrast to Prince Thomas who was dressed casually but immaculately. (Actually, he was sure, but he didn't want to read into that because it would send his hopes sky high and gardeners didn't have any chance with Princes, not really).

"I don't think you're one of them," Thomas continued, not seeming to care that Teddy's input to the conversation was approaching zero, "because Billy is wary of them and even now -"

His voice trailed off and a new train of thought seemed to hit him.

"Who are you?"

The question hit Teddy like a freighter as Thomas suddenly turned his full attention on him. He was as forceful as his twin, though green eyes didn't have as much sway on Teddy as brown. It was enough, however, to have him blurting out his full name.

"Don't know you," Thomas said thoughtfully. He stretched, gave Teddy another up and down examination.

"My brother mentioned passing out on a couch somewhere."

The unsaid question hovered. Teddy wondered if there was a remonstrance coming somewhere. Thomas was hard to read: not only were the expressions he allowed too quick, most of the time his face was schooled anyway. He blew from one thing to another in hurricane mode, it was hard to keep up.

"That was me," he admitted. "I found him barely conscious and I took him back to mine to recover."

Thomas stared at him.

"Why?"

Teddy blinked.

"Sorry?"

"Why rescue him? It might have gotten you into trouble."

Teddy couldn't quite work out how to answer that.

"He was hurt?" he said and it sounded like a question.

Thomas nodded thoughtfully.

"He doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember any of it. They watch him all the time and they’ve done something I know they have but I don’t know what and I don't know iftheyaregoingtotryagainorwhenorhowtoprotecthimor-"

Thomas's rapid fire speech which became more rapid fire as he grew more distressed to the point of illegibility, cut off when a voice called for him. Teddy stilled and Thomas's smirk was suddenly back.

"I can see why you like the rose gardens," he commented in a low voice, flicking his gaze over to Teddy like a whip. Teddy's cheeks coloured.

"It's my job," he protested too quickly but quietly and luckily Thomas didn't seem to hear him. He'd moved away from Teddy in the blink of an eye and was sitting on the bench Billy usually occupied. Teddy belated followed his cue and picked up the shears again, pretending to work.

Billy came into view, not really looking at anything. His gaze passed over Teddy and, though he gave a small, perfunctory smile, again there was no recognition at all in his eyes. Teddy shivered.  

"Mom wants us," Billy told his brother. "Guests are arriving."

"Already?" Thomas complained. "The party is not for hours."

Billy shrugged, disinterested.

"Fine," Thomas said, standing. "Race you?"

Billy didn't respond. Thomas turned back to Teddy and mouthed _see_ with an accompanied exaggerated frown. Then he was gone.

Teddy watched as Billy walked away, his back perfectly straight as Kate's advice rang clear in his head, mingling with the less than illuminating conversation with Thomas.  He had a bad feeling about the party and he wondered how amenable Kate would be to befriending and watching over two princes.


	3. Part 3

"Okay" Kate said, throwing herself down into the chair opposite Teddy with a huge grin. "Tell me I'm awesome. Because I'm awesome."

"You're awesome," Teddy agreed. "But what specifically did you do this time?"

Kate looked at him for a second, apparently trying to decode whether or not there had been any sarcasm there. Not finding any she leant forward and grinned.

"Just call me your fairy godmother," she said with a grin. "Because Theodore Altman you shall go to the ball!"

With an expansive gesture she brought out a ticket from inside her coat pocket. It was on thick card, the writing glinting the dim light of the coffee shop.

"It's mine," Kate clarified. "But you know I'd never actually read one of these before. Barely even looked at it, just turned up whenever my dad told me to go. But this entitles me to a plus one. So I no longer have to be bored at these events and you get to stare at Prince Charming all night. Isn't that great?"

Teddy hadn't even had time to bring up the possibility of Kate keeping an eye on Billy before Kate had fixed the problem. Nonetheless conversation with Thomas still weighed heavily on his mind. Kate had probably been right before about not getting involved. And clearly his preoccupation with Billy was starting to be noticeable. Should he really be turning up to the palace to a party and drawing even more attention. Should he really be dragging Kate along for the ride? 

"You don't look thrilled," Kate observed.

"No," Teddy said quickly. "No, I am. It's just -"

He trailed off. Shrugged.

"What am I supposed to wear?"

"You'll have to figure that out on your own," Kate said. "I left my dress making wand at home."

"What time-?"

"Three hours," Kate said cheerfully. "You're lucky I managed to get past Susan. She thinks that five hours isn't long enough to prepare and is trying to instil the same virtues in me."

Kate rolled her eyes, standing.

"Saying that I should probably get back before her or Dad send out a search party. I'll pick you up. Have fun finding a suit."

Kate drove a purple car and she drove it herself, no chauffeur involved. She came to a sudden halt outside Teddy’s house and waved at him cheerfully. Teddy got in the car with some trepidation.  

"Dad and Susan said I should ride with them but honestly I'd rather die than listen to Susan's celebrity gossip for one minute longer. She's obsessed with the palace."

Kate paused, turned to grin at Teddy for a fraction to long and had to correct her position in the road by swerving wildly which sent Teddy slamming into the side of the car.

"You and Susan would get on," Kate continued, as though nothing had happened. "She can hook you up with all the rumours."

"Kate that's a red light," Teddy said in lieu of dignifying her comment with a response.

"I know," Kate said beatifically and true to her word did stop, though slightly more abruptly than Teddy would have liked. She drummed lightly on the steering wheel as she waited for an elderly lady and an even more elderly dog to cross at the lights.

"So what's the latest from the palace?" Kate asked. "Is Prince Charming still charming?"

Did he tell her?

"He's forgotten who I am," Teddy answered, settling for a half truth.

"Royals," Kate said sounding utterly unsurprised. "Maybe you should have left him bleeding in the alleyway am I right?"

Teddy picked an imaginary piece of dust off the side of the dashboard. Kate, who spent far too much time watching him when she was supposed to be driving, picked up on that.

"Seriously?" she said. "You're seriously still crushing on someone who is paying you back for basically saving their life by forgetting you? Come on Altman. He's cute but he's not that cute."

Teddy didn’t answer. He’d found a second piece of dust.

"Teddy?"

He bit back the urge to defend Billy, to explain that it wasn't his fault, that there was something wrong, that Billy had been made to forget.

The seatbelt seemed to be cutting into his chest. They were getting closer to the castle now which meant their pace was slower as they joined a line of shining cars and limos as they queued up at the gates, waving invitations, smiling snobbishly at passers by and craning their necks as each new car was appraised in case this car was an interloper and would be thrown out.

"It's an awful crowd," Kate said. "Why I'm glad you're along for this one even if I'm enabling your Prince fantasies."

Teddy was staring at the guards.

"You've gone pale," Kate said. "What's going on? These people are all here to suck up to the royal family which probably makes them some kind of monster, but they aren't going to bite."

Attempts to rouse him with questionable humour failing, Kate punched him in the arm. Being Kate the gesture was accidentally slightly too hard.

"Teddy?"

In the palace the guards were imposing enough, but tonight they wore ceremonial uniforms. The finery made them look like pantomime people and he almost would have had trouble accepting them as real if it hadn't been for the very tangible weapons hung from their belts. Kate had said not to interfere from the beginning and she was usually right.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Teddy said.

"It's just a party," Kate said. "Super fancy one sure, and most of the guests are boring as hell or pure evil but the canapes are good."

She frowned.

"What's really bothering you?"

"You know how you told me not to get involved in whatever was going on in the palace?"

She sighed very heavily.

"Theodore Altman what have you done?"

Teddy would have replied, would have told her but they had somehow made their way to the front of the queue and the guards were waving Kate forward. One came to her window, one came to his. Kate showed them her invitation. Teddy tried very hard not to sink down into his seat as the guards questioning gaze landed on him. His suit, left over and forgotten after a family wedding the previous year dug out of a wardrobe and hastily ironed, felt uncomfortable. He was a fake. They'd see right through him, they'd see the gardener. They'd know he was interfering.

The guard at his window leaned closer, narrowing his eyes. Teddy swallowed.

"Parking round to the left," Kate's guard said.

Kate waited until they were round to the left before rounding on Teddy.

"Spill."

"If I tell you, it could get you in trouble too."

Kate gave him a look.

"If you are stopping me from getting involved in foiling a royal family assassination plot I'm going to be mad."

"You said -"

Kate waved a hand and pulled effortlessly into the dead centre of a space the first time and one handed.

"That was before you got involved. Now you clearly are involved you better be involving me too. Should I have brought weapons? Would a bow be too obvious?"

She was smirking.

"For sure," Teddy said, choosing to take her seriously. "I'm trying not to be noticed."

He told her briefly about Billy not recognising him, the guard and his conversation with Prince Thomas.

"In-ter-esting," Kate said, dragging out the word and savouring it.

She turned and gave Teddy a huge, slightly worrying, grin.

"Alright," she said cheerfully. "Let's go save Prince Charming."

"Please stop calling him that," Teddy said. "Because I'm concerned you're going to forget and call him that to his face."

"And what's he going to do?" Kate said, but she sarcastically mimed zipping her lips shut at an exasperated look from Teddy.

They were directed up a set of steps, through a corridor and into a ballroom, attended to the entire way by blandly pleasant servants, waiters and other staff in pristine outfits. Kate responded with weary resignation, allowing them to take her coat, grabbing a drink. Teddy just felt flustered. He'd seen one or two of these people around the palace and though he had no idea of their names and he doubted they knew his he still half-expected them to yell fake, to point out this wasn't his scene.

This really wasn't his scene.

The only two events he had been to that could be classed as parties were the family wedding and Kate's last birthday. The family wedding hadn't been too over the top, and Kate was Kate so her birthday, though funded entirely by her billionaire father, was still grounded in some semblance of reality.

The House of M were not grounded in the same reality as Teddy.

The ballroom itself was elaborate with marble pillars and a floor that shone like glass and reflected the lights from the enormous chandeliers high above them. The decorations were something else: one wall had a waterfall for no apparent reason other than they could. Full size trees in pots lining the edges of the room. A bank of doors opened out onto the lawns where Teddy had been working only the day before. Peacocks wandered up and down the neat grass, and occasionally pecked the lawn and beds to death.

And everywhere there were flowers, huge displays falling in curtains, dripping out of stone urns: peonies, lilies, orchids, carnations and snapdragons. Roses.

Teddy glanced around the hall. It was already half-full with people all in masks. Teddy stopped glancing around the hall and glanced at Kate.

"Did I mention it was a masquerade?" she asked.

Teddy gave her a look of frustration.

"Yeah thought as much," Kate said. "Luckily for you I remembered that I'd probably forgotten and -"

She reached into her bag, eventually retrieved two simple silk masks.

"Ta-dah!"

"Admittedly," she added as she tied hers, "it looks slightly like we're planning on robbing a bank after this, but I didn't have a whole lot of time."

The mask only really covered the area around his eyes, but Teddy still felt slightly better for having it. Kate wanted to dance so he let her lead him onto the dance floor, joining the colourful guests and the entertainers who walked on stilts performing small feats of colourful magic.

Teddy glanced around.

"Prince Charming not here yet?" Kate asked sympathetically.

"It's not that -" Teddy said. "Kate how do you get invited to these? You're human?"

Kate shrugged.

"Daddy's rich. Politics?"

"Magneto's politics are that humans are the worst."

Kate shook her head and gave a lopsided shrug.

"Look I try not to question it."

That didn't sound like Kate.

"Unless the pitchforks come out," she continued, "Can you please just concentrate on one drama at a time? And look perfect timing there's Prince Dreamy. Stare at him."

Teddy spared half a glance in the direction Kate had gestured, intending it only to be that much to prove Kate wrong and shut her up. He ended up getting caught though because Billy looked so different, both from their first meeting and their subsequent meetings when he'd been so far away he might as well have been on another planet. He had his cloak back on and he played with the fabric with one hand, distractedly as his mother spoke to an ambassador.

He looked more with it than he'd seemed in the garden, but not at all like he had their first meeting either. When his gaze swept the room there wasn't much life in it, but then he seemed to stop at Teddy just for a millisecond and he smiled. Teddy's heart stopped. There were hundreds of people in the room. Billy wasn't looking directly at him. Billy had no idea who he was. It was a coincidence that's all.  

"So mission save Prince Charming is a go!" Kate said next to him.

Teddy hushed her, but he was smiling. He told himself it was at Kate's sense of humour, rather than a response to Billy smiling but he also knew he was a liar.


End file.
